Health Insurance

President Barack Obama was slated to take the podium at 11:35 this morning for an address on Obamacare. After his usual 30-minute sojourn somewhere within the bowels of the White House he finally appeared, flanked by old-reliable Jay Carney, and announced a “fix” to his law.

The president expressed empathy with those who received cancellation notices in the mail—all while the problems with the website persist—and addressed the “grandfather clause” that directly contradicts his words: “If you like your plan you can keep it.”

As it turned out, that pledge only applied to plans that would not be changed after Obamacare took effect—as if these plans were common. The president said: “The way I put that forward unequivocally turned out not to be accurate.” As a result, today the president has announced: “Insurers can extend current plans that would otherwise be canceled into 2014.”

The White House revealed today that, since the launch of the various Obamacare websites, 106,185 people have been able to sign up for health insurance. The glitch-ridden federal website, Healthcare.gov, was responsible for only 26,794 of these enrollments. The remainder was drawn from the state exchanges. This is far lower than official projections: the administration expected approximately 500,000 enrollments.

In early 1998, Bill Clinton—perhaps the most poll-driven president in American history—reportedly commissioned Dick Morris to poll-test the reaction if it turned out that he’d actually had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. The result? Voters would want him to resign.

And win he did, after launching a vicious, months-long smear campaign against his accusers that featured an avalanche of lies directed at the American people, including his most loyal friends and supporters. By the end of the tawdry affair, America was numb to the truth, the reputations of good people were forever tarnished in the minds of millions, and Bill Clinton ultimately skated through with a mere slap on the wrist. Today he remains a hero of his party.

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